I agree with this column for the most part. I am a bit disappointed to see the end concession about "State's rights" given that the gist of the article was that crying racism was intellectually lazy. I accept that "State's rights" was used as an argument to attempt to legitimize the Jim Crow era, but I don't think that from there we must necessarily concede that States no longer have rights. Conservatives have been shamed into abandoning one of the core principals of the Constitution, which is that the Federal Government was one of limited and well defined scope, and all else fell to the States, cities, counties, and the people.